Web servers are commonly used to serve data to inquiring users communicating on the world wide web. Usually web servers are rather large, personal computer-sized machines operable to serve vast quantities of data, which machines remain permanently connected to a land-based network such as the world wide web on the Internet. Such web servers normally use a Transmission and Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), for data signals received and transmitted by the web server and thus are compatible with conventional browsers running at user computers at various locations.
The location permanence of web servers usually requires that any information that the servers are to serve be gathered remotely and then communicated to the web server, often using the internet, for storage in a database at the web server. This communication of information to be served by the web server may be achieved in a variety of ways, including the use of a radio link between the web server and a data acquisition device. The data acquisition device may be associated with a radio transceiver, which transmits, usually on a private channel to the stationary, permanently connected land-based web server, information acquired by the data acquisition device. Thus, remote devices can communicate with the land-based web server to provide it with information that can be served to users via landlines supporting the internet.
One problem with this approach to acquiring data is that the transceiver associated with the data acquisition device is often continuously broadcasting data from its remote location to the fixed land-based web server, so that the information available from the land-based web server is always up to date or up to the minute, for example. This continuous broadcasting of information results in the requirement to continuously supply power to enable continuous broadcasting and renders the broadcast signals susceptible to detection and tapping.
What would be desirable therefore, and is an objective of the present invention, is a method and apparatus for serving data which is more mindful of energy usage, and which is less susceptible to detection and tapping.